Category Archives: Social Media

So having finally published my first post after a few abortive attempts, I’ve received some great feedback. And yet something a good friend said has been nagging at me:

dude I don’t want to dampen your spirits but I’d wait a bit until you have a few posts before hawking the blog to everyone (friendly advice)

I guess I got pretty over-excited about writing my first blog and wanted as many people to have a look as possible.

But maybe he has a point? If I went to another blog or website and there was only one article/post on it I’d probably think it wasn’t worth going back as they’d seem pretty unproductive. And what if I never have anything to say of interest again? That would be pretty embarrasing not to metion eternally recorded in the mists of the tinterweb.

I’m thinking that maybe you have to “earn your stripes” as a blogger before it’s okay to promote your thoughts to other people. But I have no idea of the etiquette. Is it 5 posts, 10 posts, 100 posts before you have the critical mass for mass (okay so 10 people) consumption?

What do you think? How soon is too soon?

P.S I’ve realised that my blogging voice is starting to sound a little Sex In The City

I woke up this morning at about 4.30am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I realised – and this is something that has been gradually dawning on me – that I have started to think in 140 characters or less.

Since starting on twitter almost exactly one month ago, (and becoming ever more of a geek, according to my wife) I can’t help thinking about all things in my life in terms of the 140 characters of the twitter update. It’s a worry, especially when the Chinese government has officially recognised the new disease of internet addiction. I guess this was probably preceded by my obsession with starting every sentence with “Simon is…” after two years of facebook, not to mention constant attempts to make my Gmail chat status witty and urbane.

And yet I’m sitting here writing this, my first blog post (oh oh, another obsession in the making) and I’m starting to think that maybe it’s not a problem at all. How often do you receive a sales email that goes on for two pages that you delete after 2 sentences? How much advertising copy is so drawn out as to bore the pants off you?

In my opinion, Twitter not only keeps you plugged into the thought processes of people you respect in your industry, interest group, whatever, but it teaches you to be concise and to the point. It forces you into writing short, sharp and clever copy to impress your peers and attract new followers. And I don’t think that’s too bad a thing at all.